I got a copy of Tribute: Dr. Seuss!

 Couldn’t possibly be more proud of this thing. Just got my copy in the mail, and it’s truly a thing of beauty. It’s the best by far of the three comic book biographies (and three comic book scripts in general) I’ve had the privilege to see published to date, and was very, very much worth the decade-plus wait to see become a reality. A great way to start the creative year!

Releasing Tribute: Dr. Seuss

https://a.co/d/0PmHFaE

A dozen or so years ago, I had two comic book biographies published, and wrote a third, and for whatever reason, that third script was never published…until this Wednesday!

The request was simple: write a Dr. Seuss comic. I crafted a rhyming biography of Seuss, a deep dive into his career, not just his famous books but his creative origins, a complete look at the man who was so easy to overlook behind all the silly creatures and abstract storytelling, the icon behind the icons…

When it went nowhere I honestly thought I had misunderstood the assignment. Was I meant to tell a new story in his style? I had a concept up my sleeve, the Goat in the Tote, that showed up later in my works. Last year I found out it was happening completely by random, just searching around Google. It was a very welcome surprise.

Not-the-Tonys 2026

Here we are with another recap of the past year, the highlights across multiple fronts, from media to personal to creative endeavors…

MOVIES

I thought it was a pretty great year for movies, but it boiled down to a horse race between A Big Bold Beautiful Journey and Marty Supreme for me. Awarding year’s best to Journey would be the latest example of just why Colin Farrell is my favorite actor. Awarding it to Supreme would give that honor to the next standout Hollywood actor, Timothée Chalamet, who also starred in A Complete Unknown. Both would more than deserve the honor. I’m talking both actors and films.

BOOKS

My favorite read last year was undoubtedly The Killer Angels, which I don’t get tired of describing as the book I was destined to read, but was very pleasantly surprised to find out how much I love. It’s the kind of experience that I consider to be the very best storytelling.

MUSIC

I really got into Colter Wall. Here’s a huge part of why:

TV

I watched a bunch of good stuff. My biggest new-to-me was certainly Severance. But my favorite show remains Ghosts. I continue to be baffled at how much it gets taken for granted.

FAVORITE WRITING PROJECT

As has kind of been belabored, I had a pretty busy year, but finally writing Collider was undoubtedly the highlight. Whenever it sees light of day I kind of think it would be impossible not to consider it something special, in and out of context.

FAMILY

The August family reunion was more rewarding than the 2024 edition. Got to spend a good deal of time with most of the family in various groupings. Finally takes the edge off missing the 2020 edition (that everyone did, since it was supposed to happen in March, just when everything shut down).

WORK

Kind of have to end on an unfortunate note, here. The room was rearranged, and that ended up leading to an implosion. Still working on how exactly that affects my ongoing employment there. Been working on potentially moving on. I still absolutely love and treasure the kids at the center, but I’ve never felt less needed. Which is certainly an ego thing, I know, which is really so much of the problem. People continue to be my main stumbling block.

It was an incredibly long year. I packed it with a lot of good things, too, but there were a number of stressors that I just couldn’t seem to get out from under. I celebrated every triumph, though. I didn’t take them for granted. Everything is a learning experience! And also: no hurricanes! 

Let me repeat: No hurricanes!

So that was pretty good.

2026: Writing Goals

I was kind of prolific from a self-publishing perspective, last year.  The goal, as ever (beyond...actually selling books?), is for mainstream publishing.  Awaiting the fate of two short stories I submitted late last year (who knows?), and I have my comic book biography of Dr. Seuss hitting shelves soon (more on that upon release!), after more than a decade waiting and really, believing it was never going to happen, and...

My last book released last year was The Blizzard of '78, the latest of my annual publications for family and friends, and as it happens, I got the idea for this year's before 2026 ever showed up, so that's going to be fun waiting to write.

I completed Collider in 2025, which was by far the biggest accomplishment, as it was, as I keep pointing out, 30 years in the making, and at the time, I thought I could use it to finally sell the Danab Cycle to publishers, but...I think I perhaps went a little too...literary with it, more than I had with Seven Thunders, which itself isn't exactly the straight narrative readers, editors, anyone might expect from space opera...Which brings me to Lady of the Horde, previously listed here as The Fateful Lightning, which is actually the conclusion of this trilogy (although I've since figured out how the fourth book is also part of the same cycle within the cycle).  Horde is the name I gave it when I mocked up covers a while ago, but I'd been thinking of it as Lightning for so long I forgot.  But I love Horde and thinking of it that way again helped define how the story needs to be told.  It should once again shatter all my recent word count records, so I look forward...

If I somehow tackle two novel-length manuscripts this year, the other will be Book of Doom, the most ambitious book I've ever envisioned, which last year I took another crack outlining, seeing what parts needed changing, and which were fine as they've been for...well, two decades.  I never, ever understand writers who say they struggle for material.  I just don't.  I always have ideas.  Sometimes I tackle them right away, and sometimes...I really, really don't.  Sometimes it's just finding the courage to tackle the big ones, the ones I know I've gotta nail.  All this, meanwhile, in the shadow of the novels I wrote at this point "long ago," which even I sometimes overlook, but have tried to resurface with the hardcover update of The Cloak of Shrouded Men I retitled The Man Comes Around.

And who knows what else I'll write?  I already know the next Easter Tale, part of the string of stories I've been working on since 2017, and collected the results up to last year in their own book.  I always have a Star Trek story to write, which I've done at least one a year since 1999.  I don't want Seuss to be my only push for comics, either, even if that means writing more scripts that go nowhere other than my blogging material (or the pages of Man Comes Around, in the extras).

Well, who knows?  I also want to tackle another poetry cycle.  I have one that required...a decent amount of research, that I was very much excited to start last year, but that'll either happen in 2026, later, or...?

This is all cumulative.  It's fun to see what each year produces, which I managed to accomplish.  I released a lot of material last year.  This year will be more about writing itself.  But it always is.